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It happened. It feels like only yesterday that I was just hanging out in my basement, trying to hock hops and grain to the local neighbourhood kids. If you have been along for this ride you have seen me in many locations and at varying levels of stress (mostly dependent upon the supply of beer). The plan was to release this blog post prior to launching the bottle shop on Thursday, but things were a little busy and it didn’t happen. So it goes.

If you were able to get out for the launch on Thursday, it was a crazy day that I really hope you enjoyed. Our tasting room still needs to be built (oh God), so Thursday was the only day we will be serving pints at this point. You may have heard that we are still waiting on our growlers to actually show up, but we will fill a CLEAN growler that you bring in. Moving forward, the plan for the bottle shop is fairly limited hours. Fridays the bottle shop will be open 11am to 7pm, Saturdays 11am to 4pm. At this point, we will be releasing the barrel-aged sours the third Saturday of every month and they will be available until they are gone. When possible, we will be applying for SOPs on bottle release days so that the bottle shop can operate as a tasting bar while the permanent one is being built.

The homebrew shop hours are not affected. Please remember that the AGCO knows you are not to be trusted (ha!). They require us to have separate entrances and tills between the homebrew shop and bottle shop. So, we are not allowed to sell you beer in the homebrew shop because society as we know it would crumble in confusion if you thought you could buy homebrew supplies and beer at the same time. Public service announcement: please remember when you are at the grocery store that, if you see beer, it is not a replacement for milk for your children.

Quick notes on the beers from this first release:

So It Gose - 50/50 old barrel aged and fresh beer. This beer is bottle conditioned to a carb of 3.2 (if you’re not a homebrewer, think champagne). Serve very cold (2-4C) - the high carbonation lifts the sour and salt lightly off the palate and makes the beer super refreshing. So It Gose was inspired by the original release of Maverick and Gose, a collab release between Mike and Ian of GLB and Amsterdam. It was the first time I had this style and I immediately fell in love with it. This is meant to be enjoyed soon and will not necessarily benefit from additional aging.

G. Lite Foote - The original blend of this was primary fermented in a whiskey barrel. I think I was out drinking at Grand Trunk the night before and had a whiskey sour and, in a moment of genius, said to myself “Rob you are gonna make that even better.” It is a blend of multiple beers; the carbonation on this is the lowest of the three as it was inspired by a cocktail. Due to the time it spent on oranges that I bought from No Frills, there is a significant amount of pulp that made it through to the end. So be mindful when pouring. Again, it is a bottle conditioned beer and this one has potential to spend time in the cellar and develop. There are, as of the time of posting, 4 bottles of this left in the shop.

Ain’t No Sunshine - Probably my favourite of the three releases. My thought was to make a peaches and cream sour. I played around with the idea of putting additional spices in beyond the vanilla beans, but ended up not. It’s a solid 10 months on peaches with a few vanilla beans. The base for this was open-fermented and then blended with the barrel-fermented base of G Lite Foote. Then, prior to bottling, it was blended again with small amounts of 2 other beers. This can go in the cellar but it’s ready to be enjoyed right now.

Quick note on the label info:

Anything barrel-aged and sour that is released is blended with multiple beers for release, unless otherwise stated. The recipe base that is listed on the bottles is the original recipe that was used, but obviously does not include the beers that are blended into it before bottling. Just something to keep in mind.

Thanks again to everyone who came out on Thursday, and for the messages of support from those who wouldn’t make it. It was amazingly reassuring to have such support from the community.

Life is Short. Homebrew.Rob

Rob Hern

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3 Responses

Scott Abrams

June 28, 2018

If you see beer in the grocery store it is probably Budweiser and it isn’t a replacement for beer either.

Scott

June 28, 2018

I was in a bottle shop here in Vienna yesterday where they also sell homebrew supplies, such corruption!! Hopefully we will become equally corrupt before too long!

Matt

June 24, 2018

“if you see beer, it is not a replacement for milk for your children” … Dammit man you could have told me before now!